Well, this one didn’t take long, did it? It’s no secret that Apple products inspire LEGO fans whose craft is an art form rather than just a hobby. That said, it’s no wonder that the iPad introduction has given the gifted LEGO artists some food for thought. A Flickr user nicknamed “Brickjournal” has a plasticky iPad made entirely out of a bunch of LEGO bricks.

A set of shots taken at various angles serve as a testament of the time and care that went into the creation of such details as the home button and dock icons, down to a thick black bezel surrounding the iPad’s screen. He says he got the iPad’s dimensions – even the weight – pretty close to the actual specs.

As you can imagine, creating “interface images” on the iPad’s screen just using LEGO bricks had to be the most painful part of the design process. A Fayetteville, North Carolina graphics designer described this ordeal:

My decision to build this stud up made the graphics a real pain to do – had I gone SNOT, I could have had a little more to work with in terms of detail. But if I went that way, the front face would have been raised a tiny bit – less than a plate.

Check out the image included below and let us know what you think in the comments. If you ask us, this guy deserves credit for beating any other plastic iPad representation we have seen to date.

Of course, true Apple fans know how LEGO experts show love for Apple gear. As Geek recently reported, LEGO fans have re-created literally every Apple product using a bunch of coloured LEGO bricks. From a fully functional iPhone Steering Wheel to a Rotating iPod Dock to an iSight Holder for a PowerBook G4, you name it – if Apple released it, there’s a high chance that a LEGO fan out there assembled the product from plastic bricks.

It seems that Apple is very well aware of this intimate relationship: Steven Combs’ cool LEGO MacBook image created with the LEGO Digital Designer software should have allegedly made an appearance in a Steve Jobs keynote.